Soviets Hint Renewal Of Nuclear Testing

MOSCOW — The Soviet Union implied Thursday that it felt free to end its 18-month-old unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing because of this week`s American test.

Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Petrovsky called Tuesday`s nuclear blast in Nevada ``a mutiny against common sense and against the will of entire humanity.``

He said the Soviet Union was prepared to resume the moratorium if the United States was willing to do the same.

Petrovsky did not say when the Soviets would resume their own nuclear testing, whether in fact they would do so or whether the Kremlin yet had given the order to do so.

``The date of our nuclear explosion will be decided by the Soviet government, taking all circumstances into consideration,`` Petrovsky said.

Asked if testing would involve development of space weapons matching those under research in the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative, another Soviet official reiterated Kremlin leader Mikhail Gorbachev`s earlier comment that it would not.

``Our response to the American `Star Wars` program will not necessarily be symmetrical, and nuclear tests will not be designed to build symmetrical weapons,`` said Yevgeny Primakov, director of the Soviet Academy of Science`s World Economics and International Relations Institute.

In its first reaction to the American test, the Communist Party newspaper Pravda said the decision by the ``rampant forces of imperialism`` to explode a nuclear device challenged the good will of the Soviet Union and ``the hopes and aspirations of all who cherish peace.``

A senior Soviet general said in December that the risk of a U.S. military breakthrough had forced Moscow`s decision to end its moratorium on testing with the first American underground blast of 1987.

Gen. Nikolai Chervov, head of the arms negotiation department of the Soviet general staff, said the United States had forged ahead with the development of new strategic weapons and space arms during the Soviet testing freeze.

The United States has refused repeatedly to join the ban, arguing that testing is needed to modernize and maintain the reliability of its nuclear deterrent, and would be needed as long as there are nuclear weapons.

Washington also has alleged that the offer came only after the Soviets had completed a series of tests to develop and modernize their own nuclear arsenal.

Secretary of State George Shultz told the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday that there had been a number of meetings with the Soviet Union to discuss further talks on nuclear testing but said any moratorium would come after, not before, major reductions in ballistic missiles.

Moscow has said a test ban is a vital first step toward real arms control.

A total of 21 nuclear test explosions were carried out worldwide during 1986, the lowest number since 1960, according to Sweden`s National Defense Research Institute.